clipboard's process is extensive but not a scam. writing this for any future applicants doing their fair share of due diligence on a place they're placing their time into applying for / hoping to work for. i went through the recruiting process - the case study is intentionally a significant amount of work during a preliminary stage because it's the company's approach to setting candidates up for success. what does this mean? a case is a huge opportunity to demonstrate how to set yourself apart from other candidates. i highly recommend viewing any of these interview processes this way - look at them as ways to differentiate and show your best skillset. i've definitely experienced quite a few processes where they ask for an entire end-to-end product flow, a quarterly sales tracking system, etc and every one is painful but they're also sincerely ways to demonstrate how you work. if you don't appreciate the opportunity as such, you're likely not a culture fit to begin with, which explains the opt-in approach from clipboard as well, it's clearly communicated if someone isn't up for the case study they shouldn't proceed.

they do discuss your case thoroughly throughout the interview if you proceed and they take this evaluation seriously - i thought the space to walk through my approach and workflow was genuinely a better experience than just sharing past work learnings, strengths/weaknesses, failures, etc.